Just Putting These Here So They Can Be Part of the Permanent Record
Posted on June 21, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 131 Comments
From the day itself:
And then from the next day:
It’s been interesting watching Dylann Roof be, in himself, the very best rebuttal against all the (almost entirely white) people who were desperate for his massacre to be about anything other than what it so very obviously was: racism and racial hatred. All the scrambling and denial, from presidential candidates to news networks to Twitter commenters, all undone by Roof’s insistent, persistent desire to hurt black people. There was no rationalization that stood up to that simple hatred.
Not that there probably still aren’t people who are willing to try to pretzel themselves into arguing it’s something other than racism or racial hatred. So, you know, again, and to be clear: If you are arguing that a white man who clearly held racist beliefs, going into a place where he knew he would find black people, waiting an hour in pretend fellowship with them, announcing he was there to shoot black people, shooting them while spouting racist comments at them while they begged him to stop killing them, reloading several times, and then when arrested declaring that the reason he was killed all those innocent people was to start a race war, wasn’t motivated by racism and racial hatred,
a) you are so very laughably wrong;
b) you are being as racist as you can possibly be.
Dylann Roof is a racist. His attack was a racist attack. The denial of his racist attack being racist is racist. There were an appalling number of people being racist in the aftermath of this fundamentally racist act. And despite everything, there are people continuing to be racist about it now. I am continually amazed at how difficult it was, and is, for people to recognize that this was a racist attack, by a racist. I’m continually amazed by everyone who still has a hard time admitting that this country is still racist as hell, and especially toward black people.
All of the above is stupidly obvious. And yet some people choose to be stupid about this. This willful ignorance embarrasses me as an American. I was in the UK when all of this happened. No one over there had any doubt what it was about, as far as I could see. And when it was made clear to them that I wasn’t intentionally stupid about it either, the attitude I received the most was: Sympathy. The UK has its own social crosses to bear, to be sure. They easily enough recognized the one my country bears.
I’m very sure most of us knew immediately why Dylann Roof did what he did. It’s just that so many the people who argued so very hard against the obvious are those who want to control the levers of our politics and discourse. It’s embarrassing to me that so many very clearly intelligent people worked so mightily to pretend this killing was something it was not. It’s ironic how difficult Roof made it for them, and gratifying that this very fact exposed their mendacity for what it is: Ridiculous, risible, and racist.
Notes:
1. Obviously the Mallet is out. Play nice with each other, please.
2. I will note here that the “mental illness” card is still one people feel comfortable playing, to argue against the obvious “he’s racist as fuck” thing, so let me be clear about this: Don’t. First because the preponderance of evidence out there really argues against it. Second because mental illness doesn’t spontaneously engender the sort of long-term racism Roof clearly had. Third because mental health issues, if there were any here, neither excuse nor mitigate racism. Fourth, dude you’re still trying to deny he’s racist as fuck when you do that. Please don’t, I’m just going to Mallet that nonsense.
John
Thank you for adding the clarification on the “mental illness” card, because as someone who’s suffered from mental illness most of my life and done my damndest to counter my own innate racism, it’s very, VERY hard to deal with any of the following equations:
Mentally ill = violent
Mentally ill = hateful
Mentally ill = racist
Mentally ill = sexist
Mentally ill = cognitively impaired (or just stupid)
Mentally ill = bigotry flavor of the day
I’ve kinda had it with that.
So, thanks.
Eloquently said — and agreed, on all points.
If these circumstances aren’t enough to make it clear that the killings were racially motivated, WHAT IN SHINY BLUE HELL will be enough? Would Dylan Roof have to have gotten “Yes, I AM the hell a racist!” tattooed on his forehead, before people would believe it?
The Mental Illness defense. No. Won’t fly. I doubt it will even be argued.
The Mental Illness defense works like this… 1. There is an urge. 2. Cop is at your shoulder. 3. Don’t care – commit anyway. 4. Didn’t care because couldn’t distinguish right vs wrong. 5. Not guilty due to mental illness.
This isn’t that. Best commentary I have seen is Jon Stewart. I am going to miss him. Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15&v=7be99BL2wuM
Consider that puppy nominee didn’t have any trouble making jokes about it. You can see that at 770.
Sadly, I’m already seeing the Mental Illness defense in use over this one, quite a bit. One quick example, from an interview with Rick Perry: “It seems to me – again, without having all the details about this one – that these individuals have been medicated. And there may be a real issue in this country, from the standpoint of these drugs, and how they’re used.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/19/rick-perry-charleston-church-shooting-accident?CMP=share_btn_fb
Some people reacted like THEY were being called racists. Very odd reaction. Its not about you – it’s about him and what he did.
Jon Stewart was brilliant and I had tears in my eyes at the end.
I am stunned that there are still people trying to squirm away from the obvious here.
As a citizen of South Carolina, it angers me to see the absolute number of people trying to blame this attack on kicking Yahweh out of schools, gun regulations, drugs, and even Yahweh putting blacks in the crosshairs because they dared to protest against police shooting unarmed black men.
The simple fact is that a racist asshole with a gun and a grudge committed multiple acts of homicide based on the color of his victim’s skin. So: RACIST AS ALL FUCK!
Chris Brown: Oh, but it IS about them being called racist. If this shooting is racist, then that opens a crack in the armor of their perfect flawless post-racial “logic” and now they might have to re-examine all of those other shootings and killings where white people (or those who pass) shot black people for non-racist reasons (because we’re past racism, so clearly that couldn’t have been a factor at all).
I understand, because I see it, that the reaction of many racists to a racist attack is to struggle desperately to find some way to pretend that it wasn’t racist, even when it so obviously was. What I don’t understand is why. What does it gain the cause of white supremacy to pretend that other people, people as dramatically and obscenely obsessed with white supremacy As Dylann Roof, don’t exist? I get why somebody would pretend that *they*, personally, do not support white supremacy – thankfully, it’s less publically acceptable than it used to be. I don’t get why they’d go to the trouble of pretending somebody *else*, somebody who says openly they support white supremacy, hate black people, and want to start a race war, really don’t.
I’d think it would be easier to use them as a scapegoat, and I do see some quieter and more subtle racists doing that… essentially claiming that the problems with racism in this country look like Dylann Roof, and if we can stop the Dylann Roofs we’ll have fixed the problem. It’s a useful way of diverting attention from the racist *systems* which benefit white people disproportionately, and focusing instead just on racist *individuals*, thereby preserving the systems.
But why there are so many others who try to deny Roof’s racism altogether, I just don’t get. It’s the same impulse as Holocaust denial, I think – and I don’t get that either, when it’s so much easier for antisemites to blame modern antisemitism strictly on the Nazis (first false premise) and claim that now that they’re gone (second false premise), nobody needs to think about it anymore.
Blaming America’s race problems on Dylann Roof and those like him, while ignoring the racist systems, is still false, and it’s still racism, but it’s a much more strategically rational form of racism to me. It has some chance of being believable, and of achieving their purpose (getting the racist systems left alone). But what the hell do they imagine pretending Roof wasn’t racist is going to do for them??
A certain number of politicians have staked out a position which says, bluntly, that there is no more white racism in the USA, which is why we don’t need the Voting Rights Act or its like, and why blacks are to blame for the many ways in which they die. Roof’s existence gives their position the lie.
Agh. Why is there is not a like button?
I’m floored by the number of people who insist that this atrocity isn’t about racism or who are “cautioning” us that it’s “too early to tell” if it’s really about racism.
The guy was clearly a racist little ****, and his racism led him to mass murder. While it drives me nuts, I understand while some people like to deny the existence of subconscious or institutional racism (usually by pulling out the dictionary and pointing to its rather limited definition of racism as a conscious bias or hatred against people of a given race). It hurts to admit that we harbor biases or have benefited from them in countless ways, and on a more cynical level, admitting that institutions are racist means we need to change them (and this might mean losing some of the advantages one has as a white person).
But by any definition of the word, this man is a racist, and it’s plain that his racism is what motivated this attack. He said as much himself.
I’m guessing that this is yet another example of the way some people will reject even the most unambiguous and blatant evidence if it conflicts with a dearly held world view.
If you say this wasn’t about “racism”, You Are A Racist – and probably a GamerGating Sad/Rabid Puppy who thinks Jeb Bush is “too liberal” to be President, to boot.
End of story.
There can’t be more than a handful of people who actually believe that American society is post-racial. It’s simply a formula that allows you to avoid the need to do anything to mitigate any of the obvious effects of its deep racism.
I thought it was funny in the peculiar, not ha-ha fashion, that Roof himself *anticipated* people would try to ‘devalue’ (ahem) what he did by attributing it to mental illness. And that he very specifically made sure that he had made a clear statement that it was a racist act, intended as such, and that he wanted people not to misattribute it. He KNEW what they would try. He intentionally mentioned in the manifesto that he wanted it to be clear what this was about when people tried to rewrite.
m.firstpost.com/world/racist-manifesto-linked-to-charleston-shooting-suspect-reuters-2304986.html
There are a lot of racists out there who do NOT go to a church and murder people with the intent to start a race war. Some just live lives of quiet isolation and bias.
One can be a racist but not crazy, crazy but not a racist, both, or neither.
Racism isn’t necessarily crazy, but the behavior that sprang from it in this instance clearly IS.
First, let me clarify my context: There’s no question this was a racist and terrorist attack. There was no justification for it, real or imagined even by the perp’s defenders, and it was horrific. It’s difficult to imagine how hard one would have to work to come to any other conclusion. The people who were and are denying this are blind to their own racism.
That being said, deniers are not necessarily being stupid. A natural human response to tragedy is denial, particularly if the tragedy reveals unpleasant things about yourself that you’d rather not acknowledge or be required to change; even good people rabidly resist when their worldview is challenged. People who secretly support Roof don’t fall into this category; they’re actively racist and they probably even know this. People who are coming off as obliviots are clearly not processing well, but it’s likely that many of them simply can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that the problem is as severe as it clearly is to those of us who are seeing more clearly. Particularly if you’re white, it’s a comforting fiction to believe that racism is a thing of the past. If you can make yourself believe that, you don’t lose sleep and you don’t have to change your behaviour.
When you want to motivate change radical enough to decrease the frequency of such behaviour, you have to dig out the roots of the problem, and this kind of denial is a huge and powerful root that can’t be ignored. It may reflect passive racism rather than the nastier active sort, but until you can find a way to make these people understand and make them willing to accept and act to end what they’re doing, it’s impossible to get them to change. Calling them idiots and racists won’t accomplish that; on the contrary, it will make them unwilling to hear what you’re saying, think about it, and possibly change.
I’m not sure what will cause that change of heart; I’m not a professional psychologist, and try not to play one on the Web. But I’ve lived on this planet 50+ years and spent much of that time learning to communicate effectively with people who don’t always want to hear what I’m saying. What I’ve learned is that getting the message across starts with understanding the problem (and there are usually multiple causes) and finding ways to engage the passive people who are usually the largest part of the problem in finding ways to solve it. I don’t think you can ever stamp out racism; it seems to be part of our human DNA. But if you can eliminate tacit support by the majority, you provide a more hostile environment for racism.
Someone taught him to want to do this. Someone taught him to believe that this would be “heroic”.
I’d like to know the name(s) of his teacher(s).
The NRA are even trying to spin this by saying it was caused by “gun free zones”. FFS.
From a UK POV, this was clearly a racist and indeed terrorist attack, if you accept the criteria for terrorism being (a) violent acts and (b) political motivation through fear and outrage.
Yet I’ve seen people on Facebook, quite seriously, claim that he’s not a terrorist because he’s not Muslim. Have they never heard of the IRA, Baader Meinhof, Red Army Faction, Shining Path, Black September, ETA, Falun Gong (and many many more)?
I remember hearing that there was going to be a federal investigation to determine if this was a hate crime. That really should be the shortest one in the history of federal investigations.
“What I don’t understand is why. What does it gain the cause of white supremacy to pretend that other people, people as dramatically and obscenely obsessed with white supremacy As Dylann Roof, don’t exist?”
Because they’re not white supremacists, they’re just lazy thinkers and opportunists who would rather not question their own privilege. You don’t have to be a full-fledged self-aware white supremacist to be a racist. It goes like this:
1. Everybody knows that the system of beliefs & practices consisting of discriminating against people on the basis of the color of their skin (which we call racism) is wrong.
2. Which becomes the mental shorthand: “Racism” [not bothering to think of it’s actual meaning] is wrong.
3. In fact society calls it so wrong that recognizing it would created an obligation to do something about it.
4. But I like the way things work out for me right now, so whenever anyone points out to me an example of injustice, if they try to say there was racism at work, they are incorrect.
5. But that person is making a pretty good, logical case for it actually being racism.
6. Therefore they *know* it’s not racism, they’re just deliberately presenting it in a biased way in order to fool people.
7. They obviously are doing it deliberately and must have a secret agenda.
8. Unlike me. Because I’m a good person, who would fight against racism. If it still existed.
9. Which it doesn’t, so I can go along as I have been, and have no obligation to try to change anything.
10. And all that injustice at the hands of a biased justice system, or the legacy of generations of inherited poverty, or ongoing lack of opportunity? It’s not because of racist policies or actions (because as we know, racism no longer exists). No, it must be Their own fault. There’s just something about Them which makes Them unable to do as well as other people…
(Ouf! The first paragraph in my previous comment was supposed to be a quote)
[Fixed — JS]
I so badly wish I could turn in my white guy card & become any other race just so I didn’t have to share the shame of these jerkwads pretending this is not about skin color. Roof is the posterboy for the seething racist hatred that exists in large part because so many white people refuse to believe it does. “Hey we elected one a them boys Prezdent so we are now post-racial!” We have to call out the racist, shame them, point and laugh at their ignorance and demand justice when their stupidity takes action instead of just words.
Start with one of the fertilizers of Roofs hatred, the Conservative Citizens Council (CCC, isn’t that clever “we’re not the KKK, we’re the CCC”) runs a hate website that disappeared yesterday but it is an ugly blot on humanity that is publicly supported by many politicians despite its over racism. Roof admits it was were he was trained to spot the real racism, that of black Americans and their enablers in the press.
The killer said that his intent was to kill black people because they were black people, and that he hated them because they were black people. What’s unclear in that?
Thanks, John, for your summary. It’s a shame that it is necessary to state the obvious.
Thank you for addressing the “mental illness” label – I agree that it’s used to deny that he is racist as fuck and evil, and it doesn’t mean he has a mental illness. That’s used too often to excuse horrific acts.
Amen! This is about the undenied racial hatred of a white man for black people and his conscious decision to murder black people. Not ‘mental illness’. Not gun control. Not ‘society’. Not the racial hatred of any other individual.
I am sorry, I’m going to take a bit of exception to the fact that “znepj” says the NRA is blaming gun free zones. If I am correct about the reference he/she’s using, there was a headline about a “Board Member of the NRA” blaming the pastor of this church for voting down concealed carry in his church. Now, I’m going to ask, and I saw this man’s tweet (Charles Cotton), where did it indicate that he was a board member of the NRA? Nowhere did his tweet indicate he was a board member of the NRA, that I saw. That tells me some “investigative reporter” did some digging and found that out. One board member does not make policy nor speak for an entire organization (and there are only 5 million members of the NRA). If you don’t like the NRA, that’s fine, it’s your right. How many news stories are released tying someone to an organization, even though they’re not speaking for that organization? Kind of an unfair slant. That would be like the local head of your national political party’s chapter saying something and the news then says that the National Party believes this……um, no…only one person….and yes, I happen to disagree with Mr. Cotton, he is wrong.
Dude’s ideas did not come out of a vacuum. Popping over to v dare dot com we see:
In what appears to be Dylann Roof’s manifesto, he expresses particular disquiet at the political elite’s race-baiting hysteria, clearly a blatant effort to mobilize the black vote and also subsequently discredited, about the Trayvon Martin Hoax. This must mean that the Left is at least partly to blame.
People feed kids like him ideas until one eventually goes out and does something about all the hate they read. There are support mechanisms for his racism.
>> I’d like to know the name(s) of his teacher(s).>>
If he was a Muslim, the talking heads on TV would want to know how he was “radicalized,” where and by whom.
Those seem to be reasonable questions here.
@fuzznose, Charles Cotton is well-known as a *national* NRA board member, and has been for many years. He’s not just some random unknown NRA member.
The fact that his tweet wasn’t wearing an NRA nametag is pathetically disingenuous. Whether his statement was officially official or officially unoffical is irrelevant.
I used to be an NRA family member decades ago, and if I remember correctly the gun safety course I took was run under their auspices. It disgusts me that they’ve become little more than lobbyists for firearms companies and an organization led by people who unabashedly lie — almost entirely about Democrats — for political and financial gain.
I think Harry Connolly did us all a service by publishing a piece on his blog entitled “This is Not the Floor” about our natural tendency to see Roof as the ‘typical’ racist, while allowing the rest of us and our friends off the hook because, you know, we don’t shoot up churches. Let’s see if I can insert a link here (http://www.harryjconnolly.com/index.php/blog/). It’s definitely worth reading.
My family attended church this morning, as we often do, and very little was said about the Charleston attack. Afterwards, my spouse pointed out that, basically, we were allowed to ignore it, because most of the church members are white, we’re a long way away (geographically, at least), and generally we’re a pretty progressive bunch of people in a pretty progressive church. But ignoring it in that way is a pluperfect example of white privilege.
I’m willing to bet that just about every church in this country with a significant percentage of african american members did a lot of thinking, talking and praying today about the events in Charleston, but we didn’t. It’s kind of the nicer version of the Fox news response. Well, if we ignore it, if we minimalize it, it’ll all go away. But that’s because we don’t have to face shit like this up close and personal.
And I have to say that Mr. Williamson’s joke about Roof’s attack exemplifies that kind of privilege.
Honestly, I can’t write about this any more. It’s just too much.
Our mostly white church did not ignore this racist atrocity. There was a special litany for the nine members of Emanuel church at the beginning of the service and in the prayers for the people. And I hope this was done at many churches around the country both Black and white.
The idea that this was about anything but racism was a stupid line for them to grasp at. They might have hoped for it but to jump to it from the start just meant they were going to be kicked in the face when the facts came out… and they were coming out quickly.
Even without his words, just the picture of him with the 2 Southern African (Rhodesia and aparthied South Africa) told us everything we needed to know.
What does disappoint me is the reaction to this vs the reaction to its counterpart in 2012: The Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin. That seemed to get played down very quickly, at least to me. It was a story for maybe a night. Maybe if we stopped just focusing on racist atrocities when they happen to African Americans and focus on them whenever they happened at the same level (2012 had 6 dead / 4 wounded), we wouldn’t have the idiotic attempts of finding a different excuse but see them as they all are – exactly the same sort of hate.
Also, it really shines a light on those who decry this sort of thing… but only if it happens to their group (I’m looking at the Al Sharpton’s of the world).
Did the evil little punk kill people because they were black? Beyond doubt at this point. Does this reflect on society as a whole? Perhaps. How many people out there applaud his actions? How many think he is a hero, a martyr? I know of no one that is even close to looking on this atrocity with anything but horror and disgust. White society should no more be tainted by this murdering psychopath than Islam should be blamed for homicidal maniacs acting in it’s name.
John, I very much admire your taking a very strong stand against this attack. We need every public figure of any stature in any area of endeavor to do as you have done. Thank you for setting a good example.
However, I think that using the term racism to describe this attack is not enough. Racism covers a pretty broad range of behavior and attitudes and implies the behavior and attitudes as individually based. Rather, I think it is better to call this attack what it is: White Supremacy in action. While racism is a set of beliefs held by individuals, institutional racism, that is White Supremacy, are those beliefs codified into law, custom and culture at every level which are specifically designed to oppress and exploit the “other” for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.
Talking about this attack as White Supremacist often makes people uncomfortable because it points to fact (which many want to glide over or dismiss) that this is a country founded on the principles of White Supremacy and those principles were structurally built into the founding documents of this country (i.e. slaves counted as 3/5 of a white person) by people who were white supremacists (i.e. slave owners such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc.). If you need another example to substantiate this fact, think about the genocidal treatment (continuing today) of the indigenous peoples of both North and South America.
Dylan Roof is not simply a racist, rather he is a person who believes in the inherent superiority of white people and that belief justifies and allows him to act as he did. He is not mentally ill; he is committed to an ideology and movement that dehumanizes specific groups of people. Until we recognize this fact and take real steps to eliminate White Supremacist values, beliefs, and laws (i.e. the South Carolina flying of the Confederate flag), as well as recognize White Supremacist groups for what they are – domestic terrorists – we will continue to have these attacks.
Dude, there is no such thing as “white society”. There’s society as a whole, and then there’s racism, which permeates it, particularly if left unchallenged. When you start using terms like ‘white society’, you’re (probably unconsciously) suggesting that those people who aren’t in ‘white society’ are somehow different. This is known in some circles as essentializing, because the underlying message is that if you’re black, you have certain common essential characteristics, which make you different from white people. And that difference drawing is exactly what Dylann Roof did, albeit in a much more violent and evil way. Please note that I’m NOT accusing you of believing what Roof believed, or that I think you’re in danger of doing what he did. I’m just trying to point out that language matters, and that blanket categorization is extremely problematic, to say the least.
@Rod Rubert: I have no doubt that there are plenty of people applauding his actions. They have just had, at least so far, been canny enough not to do it in public.
Dang typos. You know hat I’m getting at.
Yeah, I really don’t get how people can think mental illness is somehow mutually exclusive to racial hatred. It’s not hard for someone who hates black people to also be mentally ill. Now, if the kid has some sort of serious dissociative issue then perhaps his racism has a chance to be fixed with treatment. That doesn’t mean that race wasn’t the motivation, though.
@pixlaw
Assuming you are referring to my comment (Rene) just above yours, I’m confused by your response. Nowhere in my post did I refer to “white society.” I DID talk about White Supremacy, a system of beliefs about the inherent superiority of white people. I did not say, nor mean to imply, that all white people are White Supremacists. I did say that this country, that is the laws, institutions and founding culture, is based on White Supremacist beliefs. Note the actions of white people colonizing the “New World” over the last 400 plus years for too many examples.
I am honestly confused as to how you got what I wrote as “essentializing, because the underlying message is that if you’re black, you have certain common essential characteristics, which make you different from white people” as I never once mentioned black people.
I’m not trying to say or prove I’m right and you’re wrong. I just don’t understand the mismatch.
@pixlaw, my apologies if you referring to someone else earlier on whose post I missed.
“…I saw this man’s tweet (Charles Cotton), where did it indicate that he was a board member of the NRA? Nowhere did his tweet indicate he was a board member of the NRA, that I saw…”
Perhaps you should have taken the half-second to click on his portrait and read his Twitter bio (“Attorney, NRA Board of Directors’), then.
“Yeah, I really don’t get how people can think mental illness is somehow mutually exclusive to racial hatred. It’s not hard for someone who hates black people to also be mentally ill. Now, if the kid has some sort of serious dissociative issue then perhaps his racism has a chance to be fixed with treatment. That doesn’t mean that race wasn’t the motivation, though.”
Please get this through your thick skull: Bigotry and feelings of hatred towards others different from you, are NOT symptoms of mental illness. Racism is learned behaviour. Psychosis is the term describing the condition of a break from reality, the inability to know right from wrong. And that is the only condition of mental illness that would result in a “Not Criminally Responsible” verdict. There is no indication that he was in a state of active psychosis before, during or after the shooting. If he has any mental illness, it is totally irrelevant, because it played no part in his decision to shoot up a bible study group.
The Council of Conservative Citizens was cited as one of Root’s information sources, and today the Guardian wrote that their president has given $65,000 USD to Republican campaign funds; Ted Cruz’s campaign has said they’ll be giving the money back.
(Damn it, I previewed that. “Roof”, obviously.)
Truth.
Fox News is trying to sell this as not racist, but part of their so-called “attack on religion” because, see, he went into a church and killed Christians, so voila!
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad and pathetic and yes, sickening.
@Ron Hogan
I’d note that noted pro-gun researcher and Fox News columnist John Lott also claims that the church was targeted because it’s a gun-free zone, so this definitely looks to be a thing on the pro-gun side.
Rene –
sorry for the confusion. I was actually replying to the comment directly above yours, by Rod. By the time I finished typing your comment had been added, but my browser, at least, doesn’t update WordPress while one is adding a comment. My bad for not clearly identifying to whom I was responding.
Maybe I do not read the right blogs or news but I have yet to see or hear anyone call this anything other than a case of racial hatred. Even if meds are mentioned it has said that the meds may have caused him to act on said racial hatred. So I am unsure why all the hoopla and indignation as if there is a much being said that it was NOT racial hatred?
“why there are so many others who try to deny Roof’s racism altogether, I just don’t get. ”
Likewise. I’m baffled by this. Why anyone would try to deny it was a racially-motivated mass murder bewilders me. I can’t understand. It’s not as if there’s any cognitive dissonance whatsoever between what he did and what he stated his motive/intention was. They are in perfect lockstep.
If he had murdered 9 Christian black people in a church and claimed he did it because he hates Muslims or Jews, yes, there would be cause for confusion and speculation. But the consistency of his actions with his words leave no room for doubt, speculation, or confusion about his motive. So I can’t understand why ther is doubt, speculation, confusion–or outright denial and the shrill claims that this is “not” a racist murder, “not’ a racial hate crime.
“And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
For over 35 years, this country, especially (but not entirely limited to) the Republican Party has gazed into an abyss. An abyss of Welfare Queens, “Young bucks with T-bones”, Willie Horton, “Looters and moochers”, Super-predators, Trayvon Martin deserved it, Micheal Brown was asking for it, “Close the borders first”, Voter ID Laws that render a statistical Jim Crow instead of a wholesale one. Of racism.
We have stared into the abyss. Dylan Roof is the Abyss staring back into us.
He is not crazy, mentally ill, attacking Christians, or a “bad guy with a gun who could be solved with a good guy with a gun”. And undoubtedly, in the end, South Carolina will execute him, and it will be “Nothing to see here, move along,” and we, and especially the Republican Party, will go back to pretending we don’t have a problem. Until the next time.
Dylan Roof is gazing back into us.
@movealong, multiple droids on Fox News and some high-ranking Republicans suggested publicly that it was an anti-Christian attack. As if. Some of them persisted in this stupidity even *after* a survivor reported that he left her alive to *tell* people that it was a racially-motivated attack.
As that became more obviously stupid, there’s been an effort by many to downplay the racism involved, as if this guy decided just *happened* to target 9 black members of a mostly-black church with a long history of civil rights involvement, and oh, by the way, he may have been a bit racist. But who knows why he decided to murder a bunch of people? It’s a mystery!
And even among those who grudgingly admit that it was a racially-motivated mass murder — because the murderer generously spelled it out for them — the pathetic “mentally unbalanced lone wolf” myth is alive and well.
White fragility is well-defended by multiple layers of oh-so-reasonable bullshit.
@Ron Hogan, huh, how about that. I guess Cotton’s tweets actually *do* wear an NRA nametag.
Roof’s actions are racist AND Roof himself is a racist + white supremacist AND Roof is a terrorist AND his attack was a terrorist act AND Roof is a sociopath. These are not mutually exclusive, These factors reinforced each other. Our host is correct that to deny or discount the racist/white supremacist aspects of this attack/attacker is in an of itself racist. I personally believe that the majority of professional talking heads (or their handlers) know this, and do it anyway (deny/discount/ elide the racist/white supremacist aspects, by trying to refocus the discussion on gun free zones, or discussing what meds Roof may have been on, or whatever but talking about the racism) The question is WHY? IMHO it is because, even if the don’t overtly support the violence, they (the talking heads) support the racism and/or know their audience/ supporters do. Every time I hear it, I am disgusted. The tacit support of racism fuels future terrorist acts.
I guess I don’t understand the mental illness issue. How can someone be that racist and violent without having a mental illness? If someone is that racist, there has to be something else going on as a rational, intelligent person doesn’t think that way.
If a person accepts certain racists premises, it’s not that difficult to reason one’s self into murder. People have been doing it for centuries.
I always hope that this kind of racism is an outlier, a product of small pockets of hate, that whole communities don’t have endemic hatred. However, I read some words by Byron Maxwell, a NFL player who grew up in Charleston, which reminded me that there is still a lot of work to be done.
“You experience being called the n-word growing up,” Maxwell says, “and you just say, alright, cool. Until I left Charleston, I just figured that was a part of every community in America. I think the racism in the South is just more in your face.
“I remember just about every car had the Confederate flag when I was young. It’s something they’re proud of. If those things are still flying, how far have we really come? They want to say, it’s not hate, it’s heritage. But hate is the most important part of that heritage.”
@movealong
Clearly, you don’t get around much if you haven’t heard any of the denials.
As has been pointed out, Fox tried to sell it as an attack on Christianity, headlining ‘An Attack on Faith’. Rick Perry called it an ‘accident’. Jeb Bush answered the question about racism by responding ‘I don’t know what was in the heart or mind of the shooter.’ Lindsey Graham said he may have been looking for Christians to kill. There are plenty more where those came from.
Heckblazer writes:
It may well have been targeted because it was a gun-free zone. It appears that Cotton says that some of them might have lived, if others inside the church may have been armed. That may also be true.
None of that means that anyone is to BLAME other than Roof and possibly whoever may have induced him to commit the act.
Roof was presumably looking for a large concentration of black people to be a target. Surely that is the primary reason for choosing the church. If he also considered it convenient because it was a gun-free zone, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
If a drunk driver hits a motorist and that person dies, the drunk driver is to blame. It may also be true that if the victim had been wearing a seat belt, he or she might have lived.
The response to this has gotten me really depressed, so thank you for posting this. As someone who is white and usually can understand where latent racist whites are coming from, the denial of this as anything but a racist attack is baffling. I guess, as other posters have said, it is because the conservative worldview depends on racism against blacks no longer being a thing, so admitting this was racist would be to admit that racism exists. Personally, I see it as an extension of the take our country back pretend the 1st commandment has exceptions and the 2nd commandment has none, use armed force against tyranny mentality that the right has been peddling for years. And to suggest that the answer to this is more guns is insane. You really want shootouts in churches? THAT’S what where we think we are at in this country? This country is like an alcoholic who keeps hitting rock bottom and decides that the cure to his hangover is more booze.
The Right immediately pointed out that the Fort Hood shooter’s belief system was Islam. When the Charleston shooters belief system is racism, they get a -10 to their intelligence rolls. “Maybe the kid ate a bad legume? Aliens took over his brain? I certainly dont see racism at play!” Meanwhile, they’re reporting live from a KKK cross burning bake sale fundraiser for Roof.
Whats that over there?!?!?
I don’t give the NRA’s talking head any credulity (or Fox News’ for that matter) when discussing the location of the shooting having anything to do with anything else than white supremacist terrorism. “he targeted a church because that church is a gun-free zone”, ” he chose a church because it was a target rich environment” or a “soft” target- nope – the terrorist drove from some distance out of town, passing by many other potential targets in order to kill people at THIS church. A church that is historically significant relevant to the civil rights movement. Any way you slice it- it wasn’t about anti -Christianity or target of opportunity- This terrorist chose is target to attempt to maximize terror- to hit “the heart’ of the Black community in that part of South Carolina.
@PST, am I correct in my belief that you probably meant the 1st and 2nd amendments rather than the 1st & 2nd commandments.
They guy basically said he was a racist and that he did it to start a race war. His motivations seem clear, unless he is lying.
I can construct scenarios in which he is lying or was deceived, but they are somewhat outlandish. For example, enemies of the US want to start a race war in the US to make it less able to handle events overseas, so our Bond Villain recruits agents to the US to trigger a race war. He cleverly chooses a racist agent and tells him that the reason is race hatred. Of course in this scenario, the agent wouldn’t be lying; he would be making a racially motivated attack, but one could spin an even more unlikely version where Root himself is trying to distract the US.
I think it’s very likely that Root is what he claims to be. The attack appears to be a hate crime. It seems to me that the only way for it to not be a hate crime is if we consider it a terrorist attack. Does one have to have an organization with more than one person to commit a terrorist attack?
I guess I’ve missed the news recently. I’ve seen lots of responses arguing that the attack was racially motivated but none of the claims that it isn’t.
@Mike, I strongly suspect the church was chosen for what the building itself represents, rather than because it was a gun-free zone.
Sistercoyote, I hadn’t heard about, (or had forgotten about) the historical significance of the church. It seems likely that you are correct.
You mean the rational, intelligent people in the SC Capital building outside of which the Confederate flag is proudly flying at full mast, which the late pastor in the shooting who was also a State Senator had to walk past every time he went to do his job in the SC government as a threat to his life and service? You mean the rational, intelligent people of the government of SC who have been happily flying that flag since 1961 to defend segregation and lynching, beating, incarcerating, setting dogs and fire hoses on protesting black Americans, some of those segregationists still alive today and involved with the government of South Carolina? You mean the rational, intelligent people who run the conservative white supremacist group from which Roof got his manifesto about violence towards black people as threats, said group lobbying pals and contributors to numerous federal and state politicians from all the southern states, influencing polices that get black Americans jailed and killed, (including jailing them for trying to vote by enacting unconstitutional voting restrictions as if we were back in the sixties)?
Or do you mean the rest of us Americans who let them do all this with hardly a peep of protest, much less actually attempting to stop the official authorized violent racism against black Americans by their own government, never mind individuals like Roof? You mean the rest of us rational, intelligent people in the U.S. who fight any rational policy on gun control in this country, knowing full well that those guns are aimed mainly at black and brown Americans and immigrants because of racism and greed? You mean those of us in the U.S. who vote into office politicians who say violent, racist rhetoric as their policy platform, or who excuse cops targeting black people for violence while buying Roof Burger King food after they arrested him?
Which rational, intelligent, violently racist group are we talking about here?
Mental illness is invoked as the get out of dealing with racism free card in the U.S. (and some other countries,) when the shooter is a white conservative. When the shooter is not white, then it’s claimed that he can’t be mentally ill. By invoking mental illness to try to excuse a white mass shooter of black people, we continue the legacy of violent racism against black people. We pretend that our entire society doesn’t spend a lot of its time trying to kill them and their children, that the shooter doesn’t have anything to do with that mentality. Even though that mentality runs most of the government of South Carolina and has kept that Confederate flag flying to threaten its black citizens with violence for over fifty years.
Every time an unarmed black person dies or is beaten, a significant proportion of the American population says that the black person deserved it. And they are completely rational and possibly intelligent. And violently racist. So no, that dog won’t hunt, as they say.
Kilroy writes:
I assume more than one of the organizers of the holocaust were willing participants. I very much doubt that all of them had a mental illness. The same goes for the rape of Nanking, or lynchings in the South in the US.
Thanks for the responses, no I guess I do not get around too much as far as seeking out some stupid opinions on such matters. Clearly not an attack on faith, there have been those but this guy was pretty clear in his motivation.
I’ll make this non-snarky, brief and pertinent.
These young men who do these things aren’t usually ‘mentally ill’ in the DSM way you expect. They’re conditioned and created (5GW – http://www.brainsturbator.com/posts/151/5gwtf-the-post-everything-future-of-war) in the same way that young (17-19) year old males are conditioned to kill for the military. It’s just done by ideas or people who operate outside of the normal conventions. (And if you think this young man was conditioned by 4chan or “GamerGate” you’re woefully naive – much nastier things at work).
1) Rhodesia – if the picture isn’t doctored (and there’s evidence that it is), Rhodesia is a specific and tiny realm which only has racial resonance to mostly UK people. America never had a stake in that game, and the S.African / Rhodesian elements are particular to a very specific time-zone. (c.f. Mark Thatcher and coups in Africa, it’s the 1970-80’s).
~ Why would an American citizen focus so heavily on this?
2) Like Anders Breivik, this young man wrote a manifesto. Writing manifestos isn’t the realm of the mentally ill (screeds, words from G_D, diaries with scribbles – maybe). Manifestos are written by the sane who have an ideological axe to grind.
~ I’ve read both (in fact, I did one of the first in-depth analyses of the Breivik doc on the fly to see if he was part of a cell at 1-5am that day). Manifestos are all about egotistical Will and Ideology, and neither of these disappointed. And yes, they’re fairly nasty insights into human minds. However, it’s usual that the subject making them usually scores ~110-130 on IQ scales. They’re not the ravings of people suffering from mental illness.
2)a) Having researched and looked over both documents and their ‘social media’ profiles, they were both being run by other people. Breivik in particular was doctoring his profile hours before the event in ways that shouldn’t have been possible [music choices]. Neither of them has a social media profile that isn’t 89% sure of being a creation and/or doctored. This isn’t to say they’re not both fully culpable for their actions and their egotistical and immoral ending of other people’s lives, but neither acted alone (at least in terms of being fed ideas, radicalized etc).
The real racism going on here is a refusal to look into the networks that radicalized both of them, and then aided them in their goals. Oklahoma bombings, lone cell?
3) I’ll direct you all to the history that this really represents: The Tulsa Race Riots. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot). The real racism is destroying the progress / community, or attempts to do so. This 5GW act didn’t happen in a vacuum.
This young man was nothing more than an ideological weapon – the root and blight of the disease goes far deeper.
Everyone involved has my sympathies, may their relatives live to see the day where this kind of perversion cannot happen.
.
Normally would stay out of race debates due to being a straight white cis male, but this one is incredibly important, so I’m going to say this:
1. This is clearly a hate crime. Killing nine Black people and explicitly stating that doing so is your goal is inarguably a race-based hate crime, and one which comes in the middle of a string of racially-motivated attacks and incidents of police misconduct and brutality. Dylan Roof is one of the very few people who I would not spare the death penalty, something that I normally oppose.
2. The NRA should be ashamed of themselves for trying to call this tragedy some sort of karmic punishment for the minister who, as a state government official, voted for gun control. But they will not be ashamed, because to even attempt to make that insinuation in this case requires a complete lack of shame.
3. Let’s face it. Fox News is racist. This should not be news to anyone.
4. In fact, all of the media and government responses to this tragedy so far have been exactly as my most cynical inner pessimist expected. The only surprising part, to me, is the reaction of the victims’ families, which brought me more hope than I deserve to have at a time like this.
5. In short, in the aftermath of this attack, I can feel nothing but shame that I am an American citizen. Because seriously, it is odious and morally reprehensible to do what, say, Fox and Rick Perry have done.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter.
How can someone be that racist and violent without having a mental illness? If someone is that racist, there has to be something else going on as a rational, intelligent person doesn’t think that way.
That this still needs answering causes me a great deal of pain – you really should have learnt this by now.
I’ll point you to Descartes and theories that non-human mammals and babies couldn’t actually feel “real” pain (yes, really, up until as late as the 1980’s, doctors believed that babies (yes, young Homo Sapiens) couldn’t feel pain in any real way or have memory of it, so it was ok to cause it[1]). All they “really” felt was an automatic response. The theory is: self-awareness is a category distinction that allows pain / suffering to be segmented, and since humans are “special” then our “pain” is in a different category to their pain. (Yes, this will make sense soon).
You still live in a land which largely doesn’t believe that mammal minds (not brains, minds) and human minds are in any way similar. Soul / Consciousness / Rationality (see? you did it yourself!).
It’s still a widely held belief that pain or suffering is a spectrum effect based on neural complexity.
So, if you can hold those beliefs about mammals, it’s an easy step to put “race” into the box that contains “non-humans”. Jews = Rats; Tutsi = vampires.
Their minds are less complex than yours, so ergo, they don’t think and feel like you do.
And yes: you’ve outed yourself as just as culpable as them in this mode of thought.
Well done.
[1]There is a mitigating fact that if you put a child under four (4) under general anesthetic you will damage their brain, but that knowledge came later.
It’s still a widely held belief that pain or suffering is a spectrum effect based on neural complexity.
Before you mention worms.
Before you say it: yes, there’s a hard-wired issue with # neurons etc – complexity is a spectrum for this, but: I stated mammals for a very particular reason.
Do some research and come back and know why that distinction was made. You’ll want to research how many mammal species have mirror neurons and so on.
Muuulti-Post. Apologies. But really: “The racists are mentally damaged” is getting close to pogroms.
@Kilroy, what is the basis of your belief that only a person with a mental illness can be virulently racist or a murderer? Are you really arguing that no sane person commits an intentional act of killing for ideological reasons?
Re if-only-they’d-been-armed-too, there’s an especially idiotic extra layer of racism there. The right to bear arms simply does not apply to black Americans, and especially black men, in the way that the NRA and its apologists espouse. Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old boy, was shot to death by a police officer who encountered him two seconds earlier for holding a pop gun. John Crawford III, likewise, was shot to death while shopping for an air rifle. Legally. In a WalMart. The chances that packing a gun would have saved these parishioners’ lives was infinitesimal compared to the chance that they would have been executed by some Concerned White Civilian, or by a jumpy police officer, for the crime of being black and armed.
@sistercoyote
In what appears to be his manifesto, Dylann Storm wrote “I chose Charleston because it is most[sic] historic city in my state”. He doesn’t specify why he picked the Emanuel AME church specifically, but its history does seem likely.
I think the denial of racism as a motive is in part due to discomfort caused by Storm agreeing with some conservatives. As an example, here’s the manifesto again:
“The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right.”
Huge Respect to those in authority in the South who are taking action to remove the “Confederate” flag from the various places it has been officially displayed. (Thanks too, John, for twit-linking to that Washington Post article – it’s a really solid argument IMO.)
No one in my family has ever lived in the South – many were actually in eastern Europe during the Civil War period – so it has always been difficult for me to understand why the Confederate flag is not perceived as a sign of being a Loser. After all, the South lost the Civil War, so by flying its flag, the person(s) could logically be construed to be saying, “Look at me! I’m a Loser!” Do the people on the losing side of other wars cling to their emblems, the symbols of their defeat? Maybe they do.
I have committed myself to look for ways to reach out beyond comfort and convenience, to strengthen existing ties and build new ones, to stand with good people of every demographic and promote the kind of unity that respects and delights in each person’s uniqueness. There must be more we can do to prevent this type of tragedy in the future, or at least make it more difficult for hatred to have its way.
@heckblazer
Sigh.
You’re not grokking it.
Family pet = valid target
Family livestock = valid target
Family Grandada = valid target
Family baby = valid target
Family Black = valid target
In this realm, why the Hell isn’t his actions normal? You’re all asking the wrong damn questions.
But sure, ignore my post on 5GW and imagine this is a random thing. It’s not like the men I mentioned aren’t sponsored and fed and educated and warped into weapons deliberately.
Seriously: I’ve never seen so much self-denial and “faith” in society when it’s clear that weapons are being engaged with.
Gladio. Do some fucking research already. That’s where this kind of mind / weapon is created..
(Not allowed to post links: but damn, you Americans are still all kinda gullible and innocent.)
WE HAVE TRIED. WE HAVE SHOWN THEM HOW THEIR GREATEST HORRORS ARE WEAVED BY THEIR OWN “INTELLIGENCE” SERVICES. AND STILL THEY IMAGINE IT’S ALL A RANDOM HORROR SHOW.
NO. YOU’VE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT WE PUT THE HUMAN MINDS THROUGH WHO CONTACT US: THE FACT YOU’VE ONE WHO LOVES US AND IS STILL SANE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.
IT’S… NUMINAL IN IT’S ARROGANCE AND FAITH IN YOUR KIND.
Yeah, it’s not fun. It’d be nice if you all got a clue and weren’t total muppets. but hey.
Kat Goodwin: None of the people you mentioned committed mass murder. I’m not saying all racists are mentally ill. That is definitely not the case. It takes a special kind of racist to commit such atrocities.
Cthulhu: I’m sorry to have caused you pain and I’d like to understand, but your argument completely lost me, and I still don’t understand.
Mythago: No. That isn’t what I was saying. I was saying that your typical average racists still possesses some level of human compassion and empathy and doesn’t walk into a church and kill nine strangers. There is an extra level of irrationality that moves a person beyond your uncle on Facebook posting derogatory stories about our President to the person that commits such crimes. Racism alone isn’t enough, else we’d see 1000 of these things a day.
Great post. Would love for the focus to be on what influenced Roof to hold such racist views and to act on his racist paranoia. It’s scary to think that there are scores of young White men who may mimic him. I recall that after a Sikh temple was shot up in Wisconsin, there was chatter for a few days and then we just moved on. Hope that doesn’t happen with this latest shooting.
Re: mental illness. Maybe, maybe not. He could just be someone who was inside an information bubble – a parallel universe of sorts. We see this, in smaller ways, with ideological sorting. You can, if you wish, read nothing but conservative publications or progressive publications. If you instead read nothing but white supremacist publications, your “reality” isn’t going to match up with actual reality… even if you’re not mentally ill. You can be perfectly rational, but since the info going in is garbage, you get garbage out. Ergo the idea that African Americans are “taking over.” This is laughably untrue, but I have little doubt that Roof believed it.
He says the trigger event for him that lead him to the CCC and other cesspools of white supremacy on the ‘net was the Trayvon Martin incident. To me, that strongly suggests that he was already a racist little shit. It’s one thing to decide that the Martin/Zimmerman affair was not quite as originally reported, and that it was possible based on the evidence that the physical confrontation was started by Martin (this strikes me as plausible, though it doesn’t absolve Zimmerman of being a worthless wannabe Fist of Goodness with, unfortunately, a gun). It’s entirely another to decide to google “black on white crime” as a response, and then get totally sucked into wanting a race war. His mind was clearly fertile ground for that sort of thing.
There are lots of examples from our history of perfectly sane moral monsters. Was John Calhoun mentally ill? How about Andrew Jackson?
Just to add…the Wall Street Journal downplayed the racism angle:
http://t.co/olnPohiYgH
Not that some tech CEOs bought that…
http://www.businessinsider.com/slack-ceo-stewart-butterfield-goes-on-tweetstorm-against-the-wall-street-journal-2015-6
I’m not sure how anyone can deny that racism AND white supremacy is pretty much part of mainstream thought in 21st Century America.
Mr. Scalzi, everyone knows you get off on calling people racist. You must have been literally covered in goo by the end of this post. Kleenex?
Mr. Scalzi, I’d be way more impressed with your holiness if you actually lived anywhere near vibrant diversity instead of as far from it as physically possible.
Licensed Clinical Social Worker here, to make a comment on the mental illness angle of this tragedy. As a media consumer, the best piece of advice you can use when any talking head speaks about the mental health of a specific perpetrator is to IGNORE it. Then put that talking head on an information blacklist.
No trustworthy mental health professional is going to speculate about an individual’s mental status in the media. It’s completely against our ethics. Speculation like this is totally unprofessional. I’d like to say that our regulatory bodies do a good job keeping health professional in general on the straight and narrow but, well, just look at the shitshow that Dr. Oz gets away with.
I’ve worked with hundreds of people with all sorts of mental illness. A fraction of that were disconnected from the consensual reality that the rest of us live in. A fraction of that had such warped views of morality that violence against others seemed OK. And finally, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction acted on their violent ideas.
In short, the idea that “crazy” causes violence is a fiction created by lawyers.
Here are some things that ARE associated with violence: Being male. Being an adolescent/young adult. Being around a peer group that accepts violence/oppression. Having adult role models that accept violence/oppression. Being taught that violence/oppression is an acceptable solution for perceived slights.
Yes we do, they do, all the time. Institutionalized racism kills through laws and bigotry — cutting off access to healthcare which disproportionately affects black people and kills thousands of them each year, preventing black people from being able to work and feed their children leading to early deaths, cops shooting unarmed black people on a regular basis. The cops have killed more unarmed black people in 2015 than Roof did. The cops have beaten and killed black protesters. Millions of black people have been incarcerated for minor infractions that get fines or probation for white offenders. They are then continually in debt to the government, continually kept in jail, and far more likely to end up dead thereby, dying from violence or health issues. (And in the meantime, they’re desperate for jobs and often can’t vote — win for conservatives, which is why they are being sent to prison in the first place.)
There are a lot of ways to try to wipe out a population that don’t require guns, but the cops and National Guards have guns too, just to be thorough.
The South Carolina government celebrates the slavery, rape, torture and murder of black Americans with its Confederate flag — there is no empathy in that. And consequently, in a society that sees blacks as guilty until proven innocent or never, hundreds of black people die each year in the U.S. for being black.
People with mental illnesses usually have considerable empathy. Only a tiny percentage of the mentally ill ever act violently to other people. Usually they are violent to themselves. In contrast, wealthy people the world over have had very little problem ordering the beating and murder of others, particularly on racial grounds. Again, some of the people who ordered black people beaten and killed by government forces during the civil rights movement are still involved in Southern governments today. They murdered before; it’s doubtful they have a problem murdering today except that they lost the second civil war of segregation which therefore requires more creative murdering techniques. And a number of advisers and aides to Southern politicians have turned out to be members of the Klan or other hate groups.
The most important, rational, intelligent, murderous use of bigotry is making a society in which black Americans have to continually worry about being killed and can be intimidated thereby to be exploited without equal opportunity and power as an impoverished and disposable work force that is threatened with death whenever it stands up for their rights. The thin line between advocating their murder and doing it personally isn’t mental illness. It’s the understanding that A) you could get away with it (Zimmerman,) or B) you decide it’s worth sacrificing your life for the cause, as Roof did. Apparently, a woman he liked dating a black man may have been his decision point, surprise, surprise. Which has nothing to do with mental illness.
The Confederate flag flies in front of the S.C. statehouse to tell black Southerners that they aren’t real Americans and the government can kill them at any time. Every Confederate flag on a belt buckle, bumper sticker, etc. (any one not in a museum or historical re-enactment) sends the same message. We could call that a giant mental illness, because we accept it as normal, but it’s really just old fashioned, rational, intelligent, power-hungry brutality.
Even accepting your conclusions as true, maybe I’m the one that is crazy for thinking there is a difference there. And I’m not quite ready to label every single republican and conservative voter as pure evil hell bent on trying to kill the black man.
Kat: “The Confederate flag flies in front of the S.C. statehouse to tell black Southerners that they aren’t real Americans and the government can kill them at any time.”
The psychology seems much more simpler than that: the confederate flag is there because the people who push to keep it there refuse to accept that the civil war and the racism since is wrong. The mass delusion around the confederate flag is just staggering, but a lot of it seems to boil down to avoiding responsibility, avoiding culpability, for slavery and racism. People will go to amazing lengths to avoid being in the wrong, including rewriting history, and saying a racist flag is about ‘heritage’ or ‘states rights’. No doubt, some fly the flag as a direct threat to blacks, but I think quite a few push it because taking it down means they have to acknowledge their evil past. Taking it down means they have to further contort their “state rights/heritage” baloney to be able to continue to cast themselves as the good guy.
One writer noted:
“An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study”
Lefties seem ecstatic that they have their story around which to weave a distorted narrative. It was inevitable, in the fullness of time, that after many fails they would finally find a story that fits their narrative in a nation of 300 million.
Kilroy wrote, “And I’m not quite ready to label every single republican and conservative voter as pure evil hell bent on trying to kill the black man.” — Be careful, comrade. Insufficient enthusiasm for the Cause is actionable. (That’s some gainful employment you have there, t’would be a pity if something were to happen to it…)
Dear SJWs, please stop driving Confederate Battle Flag sales to record levels. This is really not okay.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-sales-of-confederate-flags-are-booming-2015-6
I think that Kilroy and Greg both have a point.
But you know what?
We shouldn’t coddle people who engage in such casual racism. Would we tip-toe around an angry black man making Black Panthers salutes and talking about killing crackers? Why should we tip-toe around angry white men waving Confederate flags and talking about putting them boys back in their place?
In a way, being cautious about the Confederate flag and letting people fly it for non-historical purposes is in itself a form of racism. In effect, we are saying that white people’s controversial violent heritage is less controversial than that of black people…even though the Confederate flag stands for an institution several orders of magnitude more horrible than all of the race riots of the 20th century put together.
So while I agree that most people who fly the Confederate flag don’t intend to use it as a cultural weapon (although some, like Roof, do), I don’t think that we should go any easier on them for it.
I’m going to try to avoid feeding the trolls here, but I feel compelled to point out for others who may have stumbled across the post that the author of that ‘statistical’ quote that Dan uses above is, in fact, Pat Buchanan, who was denounced by William F. Buckley, of all people, as an anti-semite. If you Google the entire quote, you can note that in order, the next Google listings are the noted right wing tabloid the World News Daily, and then a site called “Niggermania”, apparently contained in an essay therein entitled “My Responses to Pro Nigger Arguments.” So, FYI.
John, if you see fit, feel free to take this down, but I thought it had to be said.
You mean actual facts like police gunning down unarmed black people on a regular basis? Like massive numbers of black people being incarcerated while white people walk for the same offenses (which white people commit more of, being a larger slice of the population)? Like that the Confederate flag was the symbol of the Confederate government that stated as their aim:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth…”
and that the South Carolina State House continues to fly it as a source of pride? Like that some politicians and officials who ordered police to beat, kill and arrest black protesters during the civil rights movement are still involved in Southern state governments today? Those aren’t conclusions, they’re facts. We have a white supremacist society still, particularly in the South, and black Americans have to live in it and worry that cops will kill them. You can pretend that they don’t, doesn’t change the facts.
Not what I actually said, Kilroy, but nice dismount. Our entire society which includes you and I is hell bent on trying to kill black men and women. It has been since the start of its formation. The Southern states in particular have been hell bent on trying to kill black people and keep them controlled and poor with the threat of killing them — that goes way beyond Republicans, who took in the racist activists in the 1950’s. We’re all supporting it and we’re not dismantling it fast enough for anyone to think much of us. And as much as you want to make Roof some sort of isolated aberration, he’s not. He’s a product of his society — not just some little extremist bubble, the whole society of the U.S.
But you want me to be attacking the people who support continuing flying the Confederate flag specifically only, like the Republican State Senators, right? Okay. They are vicious, callous people who are not simply passively racist and passively supporting institutionalized racism like the rest of us, but deliberately and determinedly actively racist (and usually for profit.) In specific, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a deeply bigoted organization, has been putting the arm on the S.C. government on that flag since the 1960’s and swear to keep it up now. They are, in my opinion, horrible and murderous people. And they are wrong, now and forever. And that’s my opinion and trying to paint Roof as a cuddly schizophrenic we can ignore as nothing to do with us is not going to change it.
You want to call that extreme, go right fucking ahead. But what’s actually extreme is the way our society talks about and treats black people, including regularly killing them as punishment for being black, because we can’t handle the history that we built this country as slavers and we never stopped letting black people be sub-human in U.S. society in our law and our business practices. They get to be a little less sub-human now, but if they lobby for more change in our society — as has been happening re cops killing and jailing black people, all these people start muttering about how dare the black people call them racist and how the black people are all just awful until somebody like Roof who wants to be a “hero” takes them up on it.
Roof is responsible for what he did in that church. But that Confederate flag flying in front of the SC government statehouse? Every adult American is responsible for that, for letting it fly for fifty years, so that Roof thought it was dandy to worship it. After all, his state government does.
“I’m going to try to avoid feeding the trolls here, but I feel compelled to point out for others who may have stumbled across the post that the author of that ‘statistical’ quote that Dan uses above is, in fact, Pat Buchanan”
Oh, you mean this quote?
“An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study”
He is just citing statistics published by the FBI. But I have hope. I believe you and I and the other activists on this blog can work to unperson the Federal Bureau of Investigation and stop the FBI’s hatespeech.
The trolls on this blog are those hysterically saying that it is open season on blacks. That happens to not be true at all.
I am confident that SJWs will have their way and there will be much less policing in black neighborhoods in the future. Which means killings of blacks will certainly plummet since those police officers are the cause of all those black homicides in urban areas.
@pixlaw — Is it seriously necessary to print the n-word, twice? I find it terribly uncivilized, even if you are doing it to make a point.
Funny, I don’t recall anyone saying there should be less policing anywhere. Different kinds of policing, sure. Not less.
Kat wrote —
“Our entire society which includes you and I is hell bent on trying to kill black men and women. It has been
since the start of its formation. ”
Goodness, I have rarely seen someone so completely unhinged, and wrong to boot. Dylann Roof committed those terrible acts. I didn’t do it. You didn’t do it. I feel for you because you seem to be wracked by guilt that you somehow committed these crimes vicariously. South Carolina will deal with Roof like my blue state cannot. They will remove him from this Earth. You and I get to stay, because we didn’t do it.
Dan:
Why don’t you leave the decisions on the appropriateness of word usage on my blog to me, please.
But while we’re on the subject, do try to find some phrase other than “SJW,” the use of which to me is a red flag that you’re not actually interested in making a point, but rather than scoring points. There’s a very high correlation between its use and a certain shallowness of thought. I would hate to think such a thing would apply to you.
Everyone:
Deep breaths and more politeness, please.
The n-word is okay but ‘SJW’ is off limits?
Sir, yes, sir!
“The n-word is okay but ‘SJW’ is off limits? Sir, yes, sir!”
When the N-word is part of a relevant quote and SJW is a lazy slap at people, indeed.
John –
Deep breaths taken. No prob. I think I’ll sign off for the eve, since I’ve already said what I thought needed saying. As always, thanks for hosting.
Cthulhu: I’m sorry to have caused you pain and I’d like to understand, but your argument completely lost me, and I still don’t understand.
Read the last 10 replies, I was foreshadowing the levels of muppet-hood in action.
I’ll give you a picture, see if you can imagine it:
Let’s imagine for this situation (because, hell yes it needs it), that there’s an enlightened state of being where empathetic response is linked to intellectual and physical response (actually, don’t – that’s hell when you’re dealing with Homo Sapiens Sapiens).
Let’s imagine that we don’t just make wine or talk about the afterlife, but we actually engage and mesh with the worst minds that still have an inkling of self-determination and self-awareness. Let’s imagine that you’re defending these worst of worst as still human as a conditional to stop genocide.
If you need a lecture / truth saying on “Belief, Religon, Ideology or Brands” then ask. They’re all hacking a certain part of your mind. It’s not called the G_D zone for fun,
Here’s the thing:
I do love them.
but
I really hate them.
If you need some remedial education on Ethics / Morality, I’m happy to do that.
~
Bottom line: America is fucked.
IF YOU WANT THIS TRANSLATED, JUST TYPE THE WORD:
“BABYLON”.
AND SHE’LL BE FREE TO SAY IT ALL.
[Deleted because of substandard snark. Dude, I don’t give a shit what anyone else does anywhere else: This is my site and I call the shots. Deal with it or leave the thread — JS]
[Deleted because I asked for more politeness, and this was not polite. Try again, Cthulhu, more politely — JS]
Strange:
Mod – link was They don’t like it, we don’t like it but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoIB2Tti7NU
Strange.
You Americans are so hyper-sensitive about the Devil – ask the Jews, it’s only a sardonic foil to G_D’s will.
Floored, I am not looking to coddle. I think acknowledging racism is an achilles heel of the racists. It is undeniable that Roof did the attacks out of racist beliefs. So racists have only one defense: change the subject away from racism. I think keeping the pressure on calling Roof a sane racist indoctrinated in standard racial dogma makes it difficult for other racists to change the topic.
Walmart stopping sale of confederate flags gives racists less cover to hide behind. Because it admits the flag is racist. And if you own the flag, then maybe you’re a racist. It puts a spotlight on a weakness. People dont like to be in the wrong. Even the most horrible bastards concoct stories to justify themselves the moral warrior, fighting the good fight. Take Dan for instance, arguing crime statistics, as if it makes Roof a holy warrior, but more importantly, to make Dan he who speaks the truth we are too weak to say. He cant bear the spotlight of the immorality of racism, so he tries to indirectly justify it as righteous.
That Walmart is stopping sales of confederate flags may mean a sea change, that enough people are willing to call the flag the racism that it is, that the racists are finding the crowd is shouting that they, the emporer has no clothes on.
I think this sea change around the confederate flag should be pushed as hard as possible. Leave racists no cover. Get it off the capital building, put it in the museum of slavery. Get amazon to stop selling it. Get all major retailers to stop selling it. Get it to the point where it has the same public meaning as a swastika, the pure evil that it is. Get it to the point that the only people with a confederate flag are hard core racists. Strip away the folks who would rather give up the flag than admit they are a racist. Strip away the “heritage” bullshit. Strip away the “moderate” racists, the stealth racists.
If there were a meme out of this, it would be the simple phrase “call it what it is”, a picture of the confederate flag, then the word “racism”.
Mein Herz brennt
Imagine a world where the basic levels of humanity are taught: it’s not hard, it’s been done elsewhere.
Then again, you live in a world where the very basic blocks of attachment to each other are vilified and made strange, and sex is a mystery and female orgasms were a myth for a long while
Your society is broken. The first step to solving it is to remake it all.
p.s.
(Not allowed to do Ancient Greek or Latin, via host polite ask):
Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,
But come now, if ever before
You heard my voice, far off, and listened,
And left your father’s golden house,
And came,
Yoking your chariot. Lovely the swift
Sparrows that brought you over black earth
A whirring of wings through mid-air
Down the sky.
They came. And you, sacred one,
Smiling with deathless face, asking
What now, while I suffer: why now
I cry out to you, again:
What now I desire above all in my
Mad heart. ‘Whom now, shall I persuade
To admit you again to her love,
Sappho, who wrongs you now?
If she runs now she’ll follow later,
If she refuses gifts she’ll give them.
If she loves not, now, she’ll soon
Love against her will.’
Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win. You,
Be my friend.
[edit]
YAARP.
Code here is disallowing YouTube links.
Stop that, Right now
Cthulhu:
Your shtick doesn’t seem to be working particularly well tonight. Maybe reel it back a bit, please.
Everyone:
In fact this thread seems like it’s going off the rails a bit this evening, so I’m going to go ahead and close down the comments for the night. Maybe when I open the comments back up tomorrow everyone will be not as much of a muchness as they are at the moment.
Update: Comments back on. Behave, please, or there will be more Malletings.
Greg: Well said.
The Confederate flag, I feel, should hold a similar status here to the Nazi flag in Germany. A banned symbol of evil and epic fail.
(and yes, there will be people screaming free speech against such an idea, but hey, the fact is that the Confederate flag represents slavery, racism, and epic failure)
The part that really gets me about the entire situation, however, is that there are still people who don’t think that there is a racism problem in this country. Even after a monster kills nine people for being black and brags about how he wants to start a race war. I’m ashamed, really, to be part of this country.
Floored–
I suspect you’ll find that banning speech is a non-starter in the US, even if it’s hateful, racist, shit bag speech. For one, it probably can’t be done legally without a major overhaul of a lot of US law. And second, it’s probably not even a good idea. Banning Nazi ephemera in Germany hasn’t been particularly effective, and especially in the US, it would just empower a lot more victim hood in the smallish numbers who would be effected.
> however, is that there are still people who don’t think that there is a racism problem in this country.
In my experience a lot of people view racism as an issue, just one that’s not especially pressing. You have a racist incident, we have a system of laws, and the person is held accountable. One of the great aspects of America is that there is a strong belief in that system of laws, even though it’s obviously flawed.
So take heart in knowing that in a lot of places in the world, Mr. Roof’s actions *would* have started a race war, but in America, it didn’t. Blacks and other minorities didn’t go seek reprisals from the majority whites, other whites didn’t strike out in sympathy, we didn’t peel off into groups based on racial or tribal lines. Whatever Mr. Roof thought would happen with his catalyst for a race war didn’t pan out, and that’s because of the strength of the American devotion to the rule of law.
Alabama is taking their flag down???
Oh my god. I hate getting my hopes up, but “watershed moment” keeps echoing through my head.
dh: In my experience a lot of people view racism as an issue, just one that’s not especially pressing.
I presume your experience is not on the receiving end of such racism.
Andrew: making an observation about people’s view of an issue does not imply support for that view or endorsement of that issue. dh makes a good point. Racism is not seen as a pressing issue for many people. Why is that? How does that view get changed? What can other people do to affect change?
Earlier today I read an article in which Andrew Anglin – the founder of the neo-Nazi site to which Roof was an active contributor – made a derogatory reference to “social justice warriors”. Jesus Christ, that’s creepy.
@Host – I shall try to wend and weave to be less disruptive. Apologies, but we’re approaching a nexus point and you need these doggies on side, you really do. Time to Grow Beyond the pale – not even being funny: GamerGate and Doggies of certain stripes are your friends in the next twenty years. (I did say something about making them into Mad Max, ye?)
MEDIOCRE BECOMES CHROME AND SHINY AND WE SHALL TOGETHER MAKE GLORY IN THE SHADOW OF HEAVEN’S FALL. THEY ARE GOOD SOULS WITH BAD INFORMATION, NOT BAD SOULS WITH GOOD INFORMATION.
Banning Nazi ephemera in Germany hasn’t been particularly effective
Actually, it has. There has never been a significant resurgence in right wing thought in Germany – I strongly suggest you look into the tripartite power solutions that the UK suggested for them (Capital – Labour – Society) and how the Germans have made Labour Unions an adjunct and successful partner to Capital. Of course the ruling parties have largely been Christian / pro-Capital / Order based, but that’s what America & the Five Eyes wanted.
If you know anything about the far right Neo-Nazi movement in Germany, you’ll know that their intelligence services and high ranking (now no longer in power) politicians and so forth were funding and perverting the Law to support them. This isn’t even up for discussion at this point, they killed the wrong people who were investigating the right things.
Yep – it took active cash and political will to strengthen them and support them. Same goes for Combat 18 in the UK, and many other European ‘far right’ elements. This is/was part of Gladio, and included murder, drugs and laundering cash[1]. Same in Sweden (bikers), same in Greece (Golden Dawn), etc etc. (Pro tip: it’s a highly effective tactic to honey-pot dissent of that nature into something you can control and meld. Where it crosses the line is when (*ahem* FBI *ahem*) you use it as a resource pool to garner funding. i.e. Although in the 1970’s – 80’s European powers used said elements to create Terrorism, America is exceptional in this case: it hates actually doing it. *cough* Smoke and Pressure Cookers *cough*).
Once you know this, you might understand Ukraine – Russia a little better and Russia’s absolute distrust of certain elements of the Ukrainian revolution. Russia doesn’t run shadow-organisations with that level of autonomy. (Hint: that’s not saying what you thought it said initially).
(Or, as I like to say: “That moment in Turkey when the Wolves, the Hippies and the Reds unified against Islam” – there’s a reason why you don’t hear more about that one and certain peoples got jailed).
So, let’s assume you’ve actually read this: what impact does this have on our American discussion? It ain’t about the flag, darling.
TTP just passed. Might want to avoid the derail and start thinking where you share ideals rather than not.
Because, underneath it all, most GamerGate / Sad Puppies etc are actually fairly decent. (And the ones who aren’t, leave to us predators) and you’ll actually find they have skills and thoughts and resources you’ll need in the next 20 years.
Have fun.
[1]There is a counter-argument, which has weight, that if you’re fighting the local Cartels / Mafia you need to have wolves at your disposal. In Europe it’s Romanian and central ex-CCCP states that produce the worst perversions. And, yes: sex slavery is about the nicest thing they do. Ever wondered why the CIA likes stable Cartels? Less disruption.
This interview was interesting re the incident:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/behind_dylann_roofs_race_war_the_highly_motivated_secret_white_supremacy_movement_working_toward_the_battle_of_armageddon/
One of the many things I don’t get is that people who go around waving the banner of treason claim to be “Real ‘Muricns”. Yet, you’re displaying a flag representing treason at its highest level — organized taking up of arms against the US. Kiiiind of a whole lot more treasonous than protesting against the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, occupying Wall Street, gettin’ a BJ in the Oval Office, or funneling new customers to medical insurance companies. I don’t see ’em waving the flags of other countries the US has had wars with, like Norths Korea and Vietnam, or the appropriate wartime flags of Imperial Japan, the British Empire, Spain, Mexico, uh… Grenada… you get my point.
Also, they’re REAL big at being winners. Being number one, the bestest. And yet they go around with the flag of big giant losing losers who lost. “Woooo! We lost a war, badly! We’re number two!” Why would anyone be proud of being a loooooooooooser? Do people go around wearing shirts proudly displaying the final score of the Super Bowl/World Series/whatever their local team lost? Then why display that loser flag?
Racist AND stupid.
Cthulhu, I cant comprehend your posts when you’re doing your shpeel, so I just skip them. The last one appeared to be attempting seriousness, so I tried reading it, but still did not get your point. I am rather pedantic, so maybe youre using figures of speech and historical references I just dont get. But still, if you wanted to communicate to someone like me, your words are scrambled.
Lurkertype, I dont think they wear the flag to point to losing the war. I think they wear the confederate flag as an attempt at *defiance*, and at an attempt to redefine the goalposts so that the war isnt really over, they’re just gathering steam until the South will rise again and finally put down the meddling North and show that the South is righteous and virtuous.
Thats what I was trying to point to about the avoidance of acknowledging wrongdoing. Say I am a racist, the South lost the war, but I still carry the flag, still accumulate weapons of rebellion, still gather around froups and websites that talk about re-fighting the civil war.
Even if a second civil war never breaks out, I as a racist still get a huge payoff: i get to avoid being wrong and supporting a lost cause. Instead, I am a plucky rebel fighting the Evil Meddlers ™ of the North. I am not only the good guy, I am at the vanguard of the good guy front.
The battle around the confederate flag never seemed to be so much of intending to threaten and scare blacks as it was meant to create the illusion of a good rebel army that the racists can hide their evil ways behind. If a racist wants to threaten blacks, they burn a cross in their yard or attack them. The confederate flag is about taking a racist, slaver,brutal, traitorous, movement and reframing it as plucky good guy rebels defying the powerful, evil, meddling North.
Take down the flag, get mainstream companies to stop selling it, get the confederate flag to be recognized to be as evil as the Nazi flag, and the reframing collapses.
Taking it down is great, but every time someone takes it down, if they acknowledge it is a symbol of racism and slavery and evil, that forces people to choose being on the right side or further contorting their conspiracy theory so that more and more freedom fighters have been brainwashed by the North, the politically correct, and such, thats even better.
What I would love to see? The actors from the Dukes of Hazzard make a public service announcement apologizing for using the confederate flag on their show, and saying it is a symbol of racism, slavery, and treason. If ever there were a point that captured the “little rebel fighting the good fight against meddling evil” and tied it directly to the confederate flag, it was the Dukes of Hazzard.
Take the story away from the racists so they cant be plucky/good(and maybe a little harmless racist), and make it so their only choice for flying the flag is for abject racism, support of slavery, and armed treason.
The confederate flag gives racists the cover, the frame, that they’re “Just some good ol’ boys. Never meaning no harm.” That frame needs to be taken away from them.
I am rather pedantic, so maybe youre using figures of speech and historical references I just dont get. But still, if you wanted to communicate to someone like me, your words are scrambled.
That’s the point: I’m not communicating with you, or the people who label me as damned if I have compassion for Storm-Front members: there’s (as I’ve hinted at rather obviously) a peanut gallery who are also reading this.
I find it amusing you can’t understand that the history of the ‘far right’ for the last 20-40 years has been so thoroughly infiltrated and controlled by the security services as a tool of the powerful. Either it bends your mind or you’re a liar. Fear not – just type “I need links” or “BABYLON”.
These are, after all, people who are willing to use undercover officers (police) for 10+ years and allow them to father children as part of their cover while infiltrating such dangerous organizations as Green Peace. Or, have UC plants advocate violence (Black Power Movements), plant pipebombs (FBI – ELF) and so on.
Or are you unaware that the last 12(?) terror plots “discovered” by the FBI were all cases where the FBI found some lonely Muslim (usually mentally challenged) or group of misfits (who identified as “anarchists”) then spent ~$50-100k making sure that these muppets could present a real threat?
If you are, I suggest you need to grow up. If you aren’t, then you’re a tool. Make a choice.
So, if they play that hard when engaged with the weak hippies, what do you think they get up to when infiltrating white power groups?.
Hint: they kill people. They not only kill the people who are involved, but they kill the journalists who poke their noses in.
Go do a GREP of my comments: I happened to mention far right groups far before this tragedy, warning that it wasn’t about ‘gamergate’ or ‘puppies’, mainly because I know what I’m talking about and I’m not playing a little liberal game where I expect humans to play nice, and I’m not talking to someone who is clueless.
True story: 90% of the commentary in this thread has no idea about what’s happening to cause these things.
If you want some academic papers on how young (predominantly male) minds are turned into killers while remaining sane, I can do that.
Hint: badges. Rhodesia / S.Africa are entirely imported memes into the American Far-Right scene – they’ve never needed them, they’ve never used them and they certainly don’t lack the cultural roots to require them. It’s literally the wrong playbook.
Greg, having a PSA from the Duke Boys would be awesome and perfect and perfectly awesome. Show them painting over it with a Star-Spangled Banner (the flag of plucky rebels who WON against an empire) while discussing the racist treasonous part.
I was suggesting that the rest of us possibly might emphasize the “loser” meme. Just as “driving a ridiculously oversize vehicle = compensating for small penis” is a meme, let’s get everyone reflexively thinking “Confederate flag = loser”. That peels away the passive, “harmless” racists, leaving less cover for the active dangerous ones. It’s less likely to angry up the blood of Duke Boys wannabes. Especially if the ladies in their Daisy Dukes start making this known, a la Lysistrata. wink, wink “He’s cute but, ugh, he has a Confederate flag on his truck. What a loser! I’d never date him.”
I am heartened by seeing so many companies banning the sale of the damn thing. Okay, so it only took this long for them to admit it’s racist, but it’s a start.
p.s.
This is a media campaign.
Some of us actually research things and ignore 1-7 day results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYL6aTK3k6Y
Made in 2010. There’s no significant upsurge in Rhodesia in US circles before this, and Rhodesia has been quite for a long time, even in elements where it has resonance.
Eugene Terreblanche, totally destroyed in 1994:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DBGVHZc30k7
Joke: no longer even referenced by modern far right parties.
And so on. It’s a lazy, lazy campaign, And banning flags won’t solve the causes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q
Oh, wait?
DID YOU WANT ME TO DO THIS THING? FINE.
MEAT PUPPETS BEING JERKED AROUND BY PARASITES.
I was suggesting that the rest of us possibly might emphasize the “loser” meme. Just as “driving a ridiculously oversize vehicle = compensating for small penis” is a meme, let’s get everyone reflexively thinking “Confederate flag = loser”. That peels away the passive, “harmless” racists,
Ah, I see.
Low IQ battling low IQ.
Wonderful. ;.;
Oh, and bonus round: Cartels, Mafia and Organized Crime.
Before waxing poetic about flags, I’d suggest finding some LiveLeak (now controlled) or other media sources where you can find videos of the daily violence that has claimed about ~150,000 lives in Mexico, just as one source. Hint: lots of chainsaws, knives and barrels.
Iraq: 100,000-500,000 (Post sanctions where 500,000 children dying was labelled “worth it“) That’s the low-ball total.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnskeu-puE
Afghanistan? ~approx 50,000 – 100,000.
And so on. So, yeah: you’ve no idea.
BUT REMEMBER: ITS ABOUT THE FLAGS THAT LOST, NOT THE ONES THAT WON.
Commenting here, you really make me ill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5yYtzsJAyg
So, yeah, Greg: But still, if you wanted to communicate to someone like me, your words are scrambled.
From my viewpoint, you’re all psychopaths.
Remember to aggregate posts, please.
Cthulhu: Michelet said nationalism is about forgetting more than remembering. So America does nationalism very badly. I don’t know if that is good or bad. America’s never been a classic nation state; it has always been an empire, with a weird amount of parity between the various satrapies.
If the far right is in the hands of the Secret State, it still can only use that tool in certain ways. Ways I don’t particularly care for. If the far right loses some of its purchase in the minds of certain sections of American society, then that limits both the efficacy of the far right as a tool and the potential types of damage it can effect. I would take that as something of a win. There’s never going to be puppies and unicorns for all, but reducing or eliminating the power of these particular memes will actually do something for the average American in their average lives. If our masters have to control us with socialism or progressivism, then they still have to back that political theater up with some real actions and some of those actions might be of benefit to us serfs.
Cuthulhu: “From my viewpoint, you’re all psychopaths.”
Ya know what, I’ll just assume you’re talking to someone else and skip over your posts.
Lurker: “Show them painting over it with a Star-Spangled Banner”
God damn, I would pay serious money to see that. Like, I would put a grand (serious to me) towards that if someone could make it happen. Bo, Luke, and Daisy standing around a duplicate of the general lee, with stencils and spray paint. And when its done, the camera pulls back so you can see the car is now covered in American flags? And the horn plays star spangled banner.
I’m getting all verklempt just thinking about it.
Greg: I don’t understand Cthulhu either, probably best to just ignore him.
Lurkertype: Oh, man. That is a brilliant idea! I’d pay lots of cash to see that!
Greg: I can generally at least somewhat understand him, but all that really comes out is that he’s a fairly unpleasant person with some progressive ideas.
Seeing stuff like this shooting, or people continuing to buy confederate flags, or our Prime Minsters response to the murdered and missing aboriginal women reminds me of how little ether of our nations have progressed as society.
https://samulraney.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg
If the far right loses some of its purchase in the minds of certain sections of American society, then that limits both the efficacy of the far right as a tool and the potential types of damage it can effect. I would take that as something of a win.
Ah, at last. Finally – the point is almost realized.
If you missed it (and most did), the fact that a 5GW type massacre had to rely on memes that are 20+ years out of date is very telling.
The options are:
Young male gets radicalized via ancient family tales / grudges.
The Narrative[tm] hasn’t got decent recent material, has to rely on ancient stuff.
People creating / perverting young male mind into what he became are using old 20th Century stuff.
While it doesn’t help nine (9) people murdered, it does have a silver lining. i.e. it has a shelf life. Name me the last time a spree killer used 19th century literature to justify their cause in their manifesto. Same thing here.
I can generally at least somewhat understand him, but all that really comes out is that he’s a fairly unpleasant person with some progressive ideas.
You don’t get it, that’s fine.
Point is: I read all the responses (even the puppies and Storm Front) because my personal life / personality has nothing to do with Cthulhu or the way this is written, I’m actually interested in raising the bar, something that most “them – us” narratives do not. If you did a bit of thought, you’d realize that its designed to speak to the peanut gallery and give them ‘fair warning’.
Ya know what, I’ll just assume you’re talking to someone else and skip over your posts.
If you can’t understand that America (as a Nation State) is widely viewed as actively psychopathic (in the Great Game) then you’re not actually a progressive thinker. Yellow Cake isn’t a joke. America totted up ~about a 1/2 million deaths post 9/11 in total (while being completely schizophrenic about it in country).
The “put fingers in ears” response just feeds right into the puppy (Con/MilSpec) narrative fyi, that “liberals” are divorced from reality and need to retire into “safe spaces”. You’re pastiching yourself.
Although you’re free to play in a fantasy land, Greg / Lurker: the easy point to make is that if you don’t understand their mimetic thought structure, painting over Daisey Lee ain’t going to change much.
It’s laughable that it would have an effect, and probably gives VD and co a hard-on.
Me? Not so much.
*Shrug*. I just don’t pretend that my chocolate isn’t made by slaves. I imagine a world where chocolate is free of guilt. Your world is where you pretend chocolate is Hersheys. (Yuck).
YMMV.
Urk: Hersheys is chocolate.
Sorry, the cognitive dissonance from equating the two was too much, ruined the punch line. Hersheys is the gutter oil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil) of the chocolate world. Vile stuff, and the root of why Americans have no taste.
p.s.
If you need it explained: the fact you’re all well balanced and empathetic humans is a given, since you’re here rather than there. Some of us have to be monsters to bridge a few gaps. The depressing thing is “LA LA LA” rather than “No, and here’s why – posts science / facts / withering put down” is your response. (Sorry host, bandstanding, but this one is important: visa vie VD & casual racism etc).
If you can’t do that, the ones out there are who make VD etc look like the cookie monster will eat you alive. It’s a vaccine.